SAT Desk
On a chill January evening in 1989, members of the Experimental Aircraft Association of Boston gathered for a special event.
At 7 p.m., the group's president introduced a guest speaker as a "master of the skies and space." The mystery man marched onto the stage, wearing a powder-blue NASA flight suit. Amateur pilots leaned forward in their chairs to take a closer look at U.S. Marine Capt. Robert J. Hunt, who was 27 and raffishly handsome, with a push-broom mustache. He arrived at the podium, his space patches shining brightly, and savored the applause.
Hunt launched into stories about his fantastic life as a U.S. Marine fighter pilot. He spoke of zooming off the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea in his F/A-18 jet fighter and showering Gaddafi's Libya with bombs. He described soaring above Earth aboard the space shuttle Atlantis, on top-secret missions for the Department of Defense. He even presented two blackened tiles that he said were scorched during his reentry. Two hours later, hands shot into the air with questions.
"What's the climb rate of the F/A-18?" someone asked. One attendee wasn't convinced. "He didn't sound intellectual enough to be an astronaut," Joy Alexander, 22 at the time, told People Magazine.
